Just My Luck

The last couple of days I have had a remarkable string of luck.Nothing as exciting as winning the lottery, I can assure you, because I would be writing to you from a warm Caribbean island, but the month has definitely been off to an auspicious start.Allow me to share.

On November 1st, while taking out the trash, I lifted the lid of the bin only to find an Xbox 360 game system sitting on top.Oh yeah, I grabbed it.

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Now, I’m not a huge video game fan.I have a Wii I use once and a while for the WiiFit program and a little Tiger Woods golf, but that’s about it.However, if fate leaves me an Xbox 360 I’m going to at least consider it.

Unfortunately the power cord, A/V hookup, and controller were not also thrown away (or at least on top- don’t get me wrong, I’m not dumpster diving) so I was left with a conundrum.I mean, what are the odds that someone just happened to throw away a working Xbox?I hated to go out and buy all of the (overpriced) cords just to find out the console doesn’t work- so I took it to a videogame store.I told them what happened and they hooked it up to their testing machine (for when they buy used systems) and sure enough this puppy worked like a charm.

Now, that’s lucky enough for me, but this doesn’t end here.My wife and I had been talking about going to Pier 1 or somewhere like that and purchasing some eucalyptus branches for a little decorative use- the added benefit of eucalyptus being that it is also very fragrant.You know, just a little something to spruce up the ol’ homestead.

Well, on the second day of November, while walking the dog through the neighborhood I noticed that a neighbor had trimmed back their giant eucalyptus tree and left a pile of branches about the size of a compact car on the side of the road for the city to remove.And then, for the second time of my life and in so many days, I found myself going through someone’s trash to get the prime branches.I swear, I found so much I had to shake out a koala before bringing it into the house.

And yet, it doesn’t end there.

While taking out the trash yesterday 22 dollars blew up from somewhere down the street and paused briefly in front of me- just long enough for me to step on it and pick it up.Now, naturally I looked around to see if someone just dropped it, but I didn’t see anyone around.Yesterday also happened to be my birthday, so I figured one of my dear readers had probably gotten word of my trashy fortunes and decided to leave me my cash present with the trash bins as a cute joke.Thanks anonymous gifter!

Finally, late yesterday afternoon a neighborhood man approached my daughter and me while we walked the dog and said something about how she always smiles and looks you in the eye or something to that effect and said he wanted her to have these cars.He gave me two packaged, collectable 1:24 die cast model cars for my daughter to play with.

So, it’s been an interesting month so far, indeed.And now that all of the holiday commercials are on I’m starting to get a little into the Christmas carol spirit and have penned a little song to commemorate: